The sentencing on Thursday comes as part of a second round of criminal convictions for the 70-year-old Weinstein, who produced multiple successful films and co-founded of Miramax Films, a movie production and distribution house.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench, who had rejected a motion by Weinstein’s lawyers for a new trial over the Los Angeles case, on Thursday sentenced Weinstein to 16 years for his crimes.
Prosecutors had called for a “high-term” penalty of 24 years because of the prior conviction in New York, rather than a “mid-term” sentence of 18 years that California law would otherwise prescribe, absent additional “aggravating” factors.
Weinstein Pleaded Not Guilty
In July 2021, Weinstein pleaded not guilty in the Los Angeles case. At the time, he said that all of his sexual encounters were consensual.At his sentencing on Thursday, Weinstein directly appealed to the judge, saying: “I maintain that I’m innocent. I never raped or sexually assaulted Jane Doe 1.”
The woman, Jane Doe 1, who Weinstein was convicted of raping, sobbed in the courtroom. She told the judge of her pain after being attacked by Weinstein.
“Before that night I was a very happy and confident woman. I valued myself and the relationship I had with God,” she said. “I was excited about my future. Everything changed after the defendant brutally assaulted me. There is no prison sentence long enough to undo the damage.”
But Weinstein said he had never met Jane Doe 1. He told the judge: “This is a made up story. Jane Doe 1 is an actress. She can turn the tears on ... Please don’t sentence me to life in prison. I don’t deserve it. There are so many things wrong with this case.”
Weinstein’s attorneys had requested a sentence of three years for each count, and have the sentences run simultaneously.
Text Messages
Weinstein’s lawyers told the judge she was wrong to have excluded from evidence messages showing that Jane Doe 1 had had a sexual relationship with Pascal Videcomini, the director of the film festival she was visiting during the alleged rape by Weinstein.Alan Jackson, one of Weinstein’s defense lawyers, said the team would have used the messages to show that the Jane Doe 1 perjured herself and damaged her credibility when she testified that she and Videcomini were merely friends and colleagues. Jackson asserted that in this instance, rape shield laws excluding the sexual history of a victim were not relevant.
“If the jury had known that Jane Doe 1 and Pascal were intimately involved, they never would have bought the story that was told,” Jackson said. “We know they wouldn’t have bought it. Because some of them have said so.”
Two of the jurors, who only gave their first names Michael and Jay, told reporters outside the courtroom that they were not there to advocate for either side, but said hearing about the text messages might have changed deliberations.
The Los Angeles criminal case had charged Weinstein with seven counts of rape and sexual assault involving four women over separate incidents between 2004 and 2013.
The jury in December 2022, besides having convicted Weinstein of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault, acquitted him of a sexual battery charge, and declared a mistrial on other charges from two other accusers on which they couldn’t reach a decision.
One of the two accusers was Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker who is the wife of California’s Democratic governor Gavin Newsom. She was known as Jane Doe 4 in the trial. She had testified of being raped by Weinstein in a hotel room in 2005.
